Radishes
Radishes are wonderful helps to mark the rows of slow sprouting seeds.
Buy this seed by the quarter pound or pound of some rapid-forcing
variety, sift out and discard the smallest seeds or sow them by themselves
because they are slower to sprout, to develop and they make poorer
radishes. Use only the large ones as row markers. Any excess seed
not used in one season may be kept until the next; for radish seed
kept in a dry place will sprout well when five or even more
years old.
Radish seedlings appear in four or five days after sowing the seed.
Because of this and also because because their seed leaves are broad and
relatively big they show where they are two or three weeks before
such slow sprouting seeds as parsley, parsnip, carrot or such small
leaved kinds as onions, leeks and as- paragus seedlings can be seen without
stooping.
By sowing radish seed in the same rows with these slow-growing and small-leaved
vegetables one can see within a week where the rows really are and
can begin to cultivate at once. The greatest advantage of this
early cultivation is that weeds are killed while they are so small
that they have no chance to do damage to the crops.
Radishes produced by the large, sifted seed reach edible size all about
the same time and may be gathered within four weeks of the sowing,
provided they are of a forcing variety. During this time the
seed of the other crops will germinate. When the radishes are removed weeds
in the rows may also be pulled, the permanent crops be given their
first thinning and the blanks filled with seedlings transplanted
from other parts of the rows.
One caution is necessary in addition to choosing a quick maturing variety:
Sow the seed very thinly. Try to drop the seeds not closer than 2"
apart, preferably 3" so that should the plants accidentally be 1"
apart you need not fear damage to the plants which are to occupy
the ground after the radishes have been removed.
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